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RUBBER 



THE HANDMAID OF CIVILIZATION 



By EDWARD W. TRRRY 



cor YRtGHTED 
BY HARRY WII.KIN PKRRY 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUL 28 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CUSi d. XXc.No. 

COPY B. 



6\^ 



REVIvSED RDITION 



XOTK 

The chapter given in the following pages is from a work en- 
titled : "Tropical Amkrica : Its Planters and Planta- 
tions," now in preparation. Sports Afidd said of the author : 
*' Probably no American is more competent to write of the conn- 
try life than is this author, who, because of his long-trained habits 
of observation, careful search for the bottom facts and weighing 
of details, of deducing therefrom the essentials and presenting 
them clearly and concisely, has made the best possible use of 
his time ard experience." 

A very successful tropical plantation company says of the 
following treatise on Rubber and its cultivation : " Wishing to 
furnish our stockholders and friends the most reliable and con- 
ser\-ative statement of the facts relating to the production of rub- 
ber and.the,progress.Ayl\ifiiJia5ibeeu.uiii'^le jr.its cultivation, we 
have sec\frf^V3)(.;rji2is*>»i«)i/1:j)niseJthe wijljinj cjiapter from ' Tropi- 
cal America*'.* \t covers fl*e*s*ufjject*i*' a scholarly and trustwor- 
thy manqeriip, to. tjie^'^r.i^po.j.' 



CHAPTER IV. 

Caucho, IwOng a mere pIvAything of the; ancient 
American, now the Handmaid op Civiliza- 
tion, BRINGS WEALTH AND LUXURY TO MODERN 
LIFE. 

L,oug before Spain's soldiers and priests brought 
to the New World the gentle teachings of cross and 
of sword, American aristocrats played ball. They 
drove through rings of stone, standing out from sculp- 
tured walls, globes made from the milk of trees which 
to this hour bear their ancient Aztec name of hule. 
Such trees were known in South America, also, and 
there their gum was named caucho, which is by those 
to the manor born called " cahoocho ;" but by Eng- 
lish tongues- it is called rubber, for no reason other 
than that, when first it became known in Britain, al- 
most its onl}' use was the rubbing out of pencil marks. 

More than three hundred j-ears passed after Span- 
ish conquistador first saw hule used in America, before 
the conservative Old World wanted more of it than a 
few small cubes, and those to correct its errors. As 
lately as three generations ago Great Britain used only 
50,000 pounds in the 3'ear, and doubtless thought that 
a large quantity. Then a devoted Yankee sacrificed 
himself, his famih', and all he could control, to make 
rubber really useful to mankind. His devotion won 
success in 1844, and made immortal the name of Good- 
vear. 



4 SOME USES OE GUM ELASTIC 

He who has curiosity enough about the uses to 
which rubber is put nowadays, may get some idea of 
them by looking into shop windows in any town of any 
size. Or he may call to mind the fact that he may 
bathe in a tul) of rulil^er, and rub himself down in his 
bath with a device also made of caucho; then step on 
a mat, a tile or other floor-covering of the same gum. 
He may dress his hair with comb and brush, and fasten 
his clothes with buttons all of rubber, then eat his 
breakfast with the aid of knife and fork having han- 
dles of the same material. The gloves with which the 
dainty housewife will protect her hands, when she 
herself washes the china that is too precious to trust 
to another, are of that elastic substance. 

Feet by millions are shod on rainy days with the 
waterproof caucho ; and thousands of other feet in 
ditch and in mine, in forest and in Ijrook, and in 
many of the tasks men set themselves to do in 
mud, and snow, and flood, are saved from wet 
and resulting ills, 1 y boots made of hule. Gossa- 
mer, waterproofed by rubber, drapes tender girls and 
thicker cloth of rubber protects rugged drivers and 
their teams, and sturd}' sailors and soldiers from rain 
and sleet and snow. In camp and on trail the rubber 
blanket and the rubber bed keep men from the damp- 
ness of the ground. It cushions the heels on which 
men tramp, and the wheels on which they glide. It 
holds the ink with which tb.ey n:ake their mark on the 
scroll of fame, and snugly binds letters and holds bills 
and other unpleasant things. With rubber the sur- 
geon covers wounds and tlie dentist dair.s tlie mouths 
of victims. Rubber pads the feet of fl>ing trotters. 



WHAT IS INDIA RrBBp;R 5 

and makes springy cushions of the wheels of that jug- 
gernaut which threatens soon to override the last 
claims of the horse to place in the economics of mankind. 
Cyclopedias and dictionaries tell the reader that 
rubber is an elastic, gummy substance, the thickened 
juice of various plants, mainly of three families, the 
Apocinaceas, the Euphorbacias, and the Urticaceas ; 
that pure rubber in thin sheets is whitish and half 
transparent ; that it is the most elastic of all known 
substances ; that its elasticity may be removed by 
stretching and keeping it in cold water, and may be 
restored by putting it into warm water ; that cold 
makes it hard and stiff, but never brittle; heat makes it 
supple, and if that heat rises to 248 degrees P'ahr. , the 
gum melts, and evaporates if the heat rises to 600 de- 
grees Fahr. ; that it dissolves in bisulphide of carbon, 
naphtha and benzol, in washed ether, chloroform and 
the oils of cajeput and lavender, of sassafras and tur- 
pentine ; that when treated with sulphur, as in vulcan- 
izing, india rubber becomes black, horny and brittle, 
and that since the process of vulcanizing was discovered 
by Goodyear, pure rubber has been rarely used, the 
vulcanized being better for nearly every purpose for 
which rubber is required. 

The milky juice of the bark of rubber trees is 
quite distinct from the sap which circulates through 
the wood. Each of more than sixty kinds of trees, 
shrubs and xdnes give elastic gum useful in the arts and 
sciences, and ha\nng generally the chief characteristics 
of hule or of the caucho of Para. They are widely 
distributed over a belt that reaches around the world, 
and has a width of forty-five degrees of latitude, or 



6 WHAT VARIETIES OE RUBBER THERE ARE 

from Madagascar, about twenty-five degrees south of 
the equator, to Vera Cruz, in Mexico, near the twenty- 
third degree north — a girdle more than three thousand 
miles in breadth. Naturally plants of so great a varie- 
ty, scattered over so wide a range of latitude, differ in 
habitat, in habits, and in rate of growth, in length of 
life, in amount and quality of the milk thev yield and 
the age at wdiich they begin giving it in paying quan- 
tities. Some of these ^neld enough of the precious gum 
to richly reward toilsome search through forests that 
are often for weeks vast seas of .yellow waters of South 
America's greatest river; through death-dealing swamps 
of Africa, steaming jungles of India, and moist cool 
hillsides of Central America and of Mexico. 

Pittier says in a series of articles on caucho, that 
there are no less than fifteen species of Ficns the milk 
of w^hich has not been examined, and an infinite num- 
ber of vines of the Aporinaceas which give milk. 
" That is, there remains here a vast field open to intel- 
ligent investigation, and which may by well conducted 
experiments give profitable results." 

Of the more noteworthy varieties of plants which 
yield elastic gum, are the Urceoln escidenta, of Burma; 
the Hancornia speciosa or mangabeira, indigenous to 
Brazil; Sajjium birjhiruJulofiuiit of Columbia; Manihot 
glaziovii, or ceara rubl^er; F icus elast ica, of East India; 
Tabernaemontana, Hevea braziliensis and CastUloaelas- 
tica, of America. 

Balata comes from Guiana, is inferior to and sells 
for much less than the price of Brazilian and Central 
American rubber, which it is used to adulterate. An 
American consul sa\s of the cultivation of balata: 



SOMETHING OF ITS COST 7 

" That the industry can be made a very profitable one 
is seen in the price paid for the rubber, which varies, 
in Paris from three to eight francs (57 cents to $1.54) 
per kilogram (2.246 pounds), according to qualit}'. It 
is evident, therefore, that while industrial enterprise is 
lying under a cloud in vSouth America, it ma}^ be to 
the interest of capitalists to turn these resources to ac- 
count, the more so as rubber is one of those things 
which are not likely to suffer depreciation to such an 
extent as to make the production unremunerative." 

The average cost of balata rubber of the Guianas 
is said to be: 

Price paid to the gatherer, per pound So 20, or 50 per cent. 

Coimnissioiis paid to overseers 02, or 5 per cent. 

General expenses and management oS, or 20 per cent. 

I,osses through bad debts 10, or 25 per cent. 

Total cost per pound Jo 40 100 per cent. 

In the ' ' bad debts ' ' mentioned are included ad- 
vances to laborers for outfits and working expenses — 
"grub-stakes," as the}^ would be termed in mining 
parlance. Of such losses United vStates Consul Keiine- 
d}-, of Para, said thatfoutof a hundred such employees 
to whom such advances were made, at least .seventy- 
five per cent, die, de.sert or return to their homes be- 
cause of illness.^ Advances made to them are a dead 
loss. 

The mangabeira grows on the arid lands of Brazil, 
e.specially on the plains we.st of Sao Paulo. It extends 
from 46° to 48° west of Greenwich, and 21' to 23° .south 
from the equator. It requires little soil, will not thrive 
on moist lands, and takes four to five j^ears to reach its 
full development, when it is about twelve feet in height 
and has a spread of branches of about eight feet. After 



8 AMERICAN RUBBER TREES 

the fifth year the bleedings begin, and the 3-iekl of milk 
is large. It is calculated that the average yield per tree 
is one kilo (344 oz.), but five kilos (11 pounds) each 
have been obtained from mavgobeira trees standing on 
ground especially favoralile to their growth. The 
greyish-black gum exudes a yellow fluid which, if not 
carefully removed, damages the quality. It is said 
that losses from that cause are about twent}' per cent, 
of the market value of the gum. 

Saphon bighnuhiloi^uin is indigenous to the Guia- 
nas, to Venezuela and to Colombia. It is said that hun- 
dreds of thousands of pounds of gum of this species 
were exported from the neighborhood of Bogota in the 
years 1880 to 1885. The species is represented in Costa 
Rica, mainly at altitudes between 1,000 and 2,800 me- 
ters (3,281 and 9,180 feet), according to Prof. Pittier. 
He quotes a statement that bigkmdulosiim has been 
exterminated in Colombia, and asks whether this was 
necessary to obtain its milk. 

In all parts of Central America Tabernaemontana 
exists, usually as shrubs of little height, branching 
near the ground. Bark, twigs, leaves and fruits give 
an abundance of white milk. Five species are known 
to Costa Rica, growing in altitudes of 1,000 to 1,300 
meters (3,281 to 4,265 feet). 

The deadly swan:ps of the Dark Continent furnish 
the rubber of Kicks id africcno, which grows to a height 
of fifty to sixty feet, and yields a fair quality of gum. 
The chief supply of African rubber comes, however, 
from creepers and vines of the genus Landolphia. Af- 
rica has roots and tubers, also, which give rubber in 
paying quantities. 



OTHKR KINDS OK RUBBER TREES 9 

That plant of thick and glossy leaf which stands 
on northern lawns in summer and adorns our rooms in 
winter is Ficus elastica, a native of Indian jungles. 
There the parent trunk rises, upheld by thin roots that 
creep out upon the surface of the ground in devious 
ways, and look as if they had flowed from the ribbed 
bole and stiffened in serpentine courses. From the 
limbs drop thin branches which thicken into new trunks 
and together hold up one broad, leafy dome, as does its 
better known cousin, Ficus indica, the banj-an tree. 
Ficns elastica is of a multitudinous family, and is sa 
slow of growth that fourteen or more years must pass 
before it can become large enough or strong enough to 
recover from " tapping " or " bleeding. ' ' It has been 
cultivated in Kast India, where the government has 
forests that produce, it is said, an average of about 
thirteen pounds per tree. 

There are in moist and hot regions of America 
varieties of Ficus, better known as matapalo or ' ' kill- 
tree," which begin life as vines that, starting from 
some limb of a tall tree, grow downward, until their 
rootlets, which are bunched at the ends, touch the 
ground. There the}- catch hold, sink into the soil and 
begin drawing food from the earth. In time the}' en- 
wrap tightly and soon choke to death the tree whicli 
gave them their first support. The trunks of the vine 
in time become a shell which coffins their murdered 
nurse and foster mother, and hides from sight her 
ruined body. 

The Heveas give to the world the best rubber 
known. They are a purely American branch of the 
family EupJiorbiaccas, and have in vSouth America eight 



TO THE TRKK That gives para gum 

well-kuown members. The rubber of Para comes from 
Hevea braziliensis, which grows to goodly height and 
thickness. Its trunk is smooth, branches long, leaves 
alternate, generally composed of three parts, flowers 
small and usually of one .sex only, in bunches growing 
at the end of the new branches. The seeds are large, 
smooth and lengthened. Two or three seeds are found 
together in a single capsule. 

In America the hule of the Aztec, the Gastilloa 
elastka of the scientist, is found in all latitudes from 3° 
south to 20° north. In Colombia it seems to exist west 
only of the Sierra de Merida, and in Ecuador it appears 
on the Pacific slopes alone. The altitude at which it 
thrives varies in different countries. In Costa Rica it 
grows at a height of 800 meters (2,625 feet), and Pit- 
tier is of the opinion that there its middle altitude may 
be about five hundred meters. 

Hulc is named Gastilloa elastica also, and is of kin 
with that weed common to roadside and pasture of the 
North, and known to many a thousand boys who have 
felt mightily stuck up because their fingers pulled apart 
its pods stuffed with seeds and silk, or broke stem or 
leaf, and dabbed on things the gummy milk that flowed 
in thick and creamy drops. Few of those boys, or of 
their elders for that matter, knew that the juice of the 
common milkweed is very like that of the latex trees of 
the tropics which give the rubber that saves us from 
many a hard rub, and shock of blow and of noise, and 
in other wa3-s helps to make modern life endurable. 

The common hule that gives the rubber of com- 
merce in Costa Rica is not the true Gastilloa elastica, 
but is the Gastilloa costaricensis. Hule macho of Costa 



CASTII^LOA ELASTICA II 

Rica is seemingly identical with the tuno of Honduras, 
which Herasley has named Gastilloa tunoi. In Costa 
Rica the favorite habitat of hule, or Gastilloa elastica, 
is an altitude of loo to 700 meters (330 to 2,300 feet) 
above sea-level, the best developed trees being found as 
high as 300 meters. In the low plains near the coasts, 
and in altitudes higher than 700 meters, hule becomes 
scarce. Five hundred meters may be regarded as its 
higher average level for all Central America and south- 
ern Mexico; but hule is not a tree of the lower plains. 
Its upper limit in Guatemala is said by Sapper to be 
about 400 meters. It will not thrive where the mer- 
cury sinks below 15° centigrade. 

That variety called T. Donell-SmithU, seen by Dr. 
Reuss in Salvador, was found by Senor Tonduz in 
Buenos Ayres in 1892, and by Cooper and Donell-Smith 
in Santa Clara, Costa Rica, where it is frequently seen 
in the forests and on the banks of the rivers. The 
fruits, cut into small pieces, quickly give a large quan- 
tity of milk which, when boiled with water, coagulates 
in a yellowish mass that little by little takes a more 
decidedly yellowish color. This gum becomes some- 
what brittle after two or three months have passed. 
It has been found that a coating of this gum protected 
perfectly copper wire immersed in salt water. It is 
thought, therefore, that it is as valuable as is gutta 
percha. 

From forest trees of those countries comes nearly 
all the gum elastic required by a multitude of indus- 
tries, and by the demands of health, comfort and luxury 
those industries ser\^e; requirements so many, so varied 



12 DESTRUCTION OF THE SOURCE OF SUPPIA' 

and often so unobtrusive that one can scarcely count 
the half without much research. 

Although great forests exist in which rubber trees 
are indigenous, there are no rubber forests, and but few 
groves of such trees. They are, as a rule, found stand- 
ing singly. It is, therefore, necessary to give much 
time to hunting, and labor to gathering their product. 
Few trees have been planted to take the place of the 
great number destroyed by the gatherer, although the 
careful studies of skilled observers have left no doubt 
that cultivating rubber trees will be most profitable. 

Destruction of rubber trees goes on with complete 
disregard for every interest involved. So far from at- 
tempting to save the trees, as a source of future rev- 
enue, the native rubber gatherer resents every endeavor 
to preserve this source of riches, and wantonly destroj^s 
the trees which give him his living. He prefers to 
seek new hunting grounds rather than to use a little 
care in saving the trees he finds. The more prudent of 
them usually gashes only one side of a tree, then leaves 
it for a few months to recover in part. Then he again 
slashes it on the side opposite that where his first hack- 
ings were. This finishes that tree. The two series of 
cuts will girdle the trunk completely in a dozen or less 
places, and of course they kill it. In some countries, 
as Ecuador, the natives simply cut down the rubber 
tree, and thus at once cut off further supplies from that 
source. 

In Central America many gatherers, when they 
find an untapped tree, make a ladder of lianas or vines 
which hang from many of the trees near, and are as 
tough and strong as whipcord. Across these they lash 



HOW RUBBER IS GATHERED 1 3 

short bits of wood, and by their help easily climb to 
the branches of the hule. Huleros who are clever have 
such steel ' ' climbers ' ' as aid linemen to ascend tele- 
graph and other poles. With such things fastened to 
their feet, uleros — the "h" isleft out of Spanish speech, 
and so may be dropped from English print — walk up 
the smooth, blue-gray trunk of the tree, and begin 
making cuts from which the milk quickly flows. 
Many another ulero makes, with rope or flexible vines, 
a loop around the bole and" his own body, presses 
his bare soles against the bark, swings forward swift- 
ly and as quickly tosses the loop upward, settles his 
body back against the rope, hitches his feet upward 
on the trunk, again tosses the loop, and so on until 
the lower limbs have been reached. The rest is easy. 

Once at the lower branches, the ulero cuts with 
his machete a notch through the bark and into the 
wood. This notch may be from half an inch to an 
inch wide, and slopes at a sharp angle which, with a 
similar notch cut in the other quarter of the trunk, 
makes a big V. About two feet below this he cuts 
another V, and then another and another pair of gashes, 
lower and yet lower until the feet of the w'ood butcher 
rest on the ground. As he descends he draws a line, 
with finger wet in the sap, from the meeting of the 
first pair of cuts downward to the last, that the milk 
may follow instead of spreading over the surface of 
the bark. 

In the junction of the lower V he may stick a bit 
of stiff leaf, or mayhap a piece of that thin-walled bam- 
boo called cariso. Beneath that stands whatever ves- 
sel the ulero may have to catch the milk. Some carr>^ 



14 MAKING CUM FROM THE MILK 

with them tin cups with one side flattened to fit against 
the tree. Many are well content with less costly and 
elaborate measures, and cut with a single clip of the 
machete a length of cariso, which they set up beneath 
the spout stuck in the side of the tree. In al)out an 
hour the milk ceases flowing. Some uleros empty the 
carisos into such vessels as they have brought to hold 
the gathering of tlie day ; but many another digs in 
the soil a little pit, then looks about for that moonplant 
which scientists have named Calonyctyon sjjeciosum. 
PVom this he cuts lengths enough, batters them between 
stones, washes out the juice in a pan and with it wets 
the sides and "bottom of his pit, so that none of the 
rubber milk shall soak into the earth. He pours his 
collection into the. pit, and then adds the juice of the 
vine. The instant the two liquids mingle the milk 
becomes a spongy, elastic, chalk-colored mass or mat. 
This he usually stores in some brook. 

This method is much quicker and easier than is 
smoking the gum in thin films over a fire, with eyes 
smarting well for one's pains, which, it is said, ofttimes 
causes blindness. There is the further advantage, sel- 
dom forgotten by the ulero, and never out of the i 'nd 
of the buj^er, that " mat " made in pits and stored in 
brooks is well preserved by abundant water, with per- 
chance a little earth from the walls of the pit to lend 
weight. These make- weights might add to the sum 
the honest ulero gets from the buyer, if the latter did 
not know the tricks of the trade. 

In some cases the rubber milk is left in pits in the 
ground until the water filters awaj- in part, and is in 
part evaporated, leaving the gum. This can be done 



BETTER WAYS FOR JIAKING RUBBER I5 

in the dry season onh*. Another way is to mix the 
sap with a little water, and let it stand for days to co- 
agulate. The mat is squeezed and worked to expel 
much of the water, and is afterward dried in smoke or 
in shade. Sometimes alum is used, or salt, or an acid, 
and the gum is afterward pressed and dried. Or four 
to eight quarts of water are added to each quart of the 
milk, and allowed to stand until the rubber rises like 
cream. This is washed repeatedly and dried slowh' , 
or is smoke-dried. Or the watery parts are permitted 
to dry away and leave the rubber, shallow vessels being 
used to hold the milk. All these methods are crude, 
costly and unsatisfactory. 

Better ways have been discovered, and it is more 
than likeh^ that improvements will be made on these 
discoveries. The Trinidad Botanical Gardens published 
in its bulletin of April, i8g8, an account of an opera- 
tion by which a machine on exhibition there separated 
in two minutes the rubber from the milk of a Castilloa 
tree or hule. In three hours that gum became sheets 
or mats of rubber of fine marketable qualit}'. It was 
f;'ee,from the usual quantity of proteid and albuminoid 
matter which is in rubber made by the usual processes. 
Machines made for this purpose are said to have given 
satisfaction, after years of experience. In its Circular 
No. 4 the Royal Botannical Gardens of Ceylon con- 
firms the statement that b}^ a centrifugal machine 
like that used in making butter, there was prepared, 
in a few minutes and at little cost, caucho absolutely 
pure and without odor or risk of decomposition. 

Herea grows rapidly where the temperature never 
goes much below 75° Farenheit (24^ centigrade), and 



l6 THE RUBBER TREE OF PARA 

•where the soil is rich and moist. .In such situations it 
will reach a height of thirty feet in two j-ears, and in 
many cases attains a height of fifty feet and a diameter 
of twenty-five inches in eight 3^ears. Para rubber 
comes from the vast valley of the Amazon, where 
Hevea braziliensis grows in lowlands which are, during 
many weeks of each year, a great swirling sea of mud- 
dy water. There Indians clad in their native modesty 
roam, and with. little hatchets notch -the -bark >-of the 
Hevea, stick against it tiny cups of clay to catch the 
drip, and when the flow has stopped, collect these cup- 
fuls and carry the milk in an earthen jar slung in a net 
of twisted bark, to the camp or other place where the 
curing is to be done. There the Indian makes a fire 
of the greasy nuts of the uricura palm, and puts over 
it a funnel or chimney of earthenware, to concentrate 
the smoke. Then he dips into the pan of rubber milk 
by the side of the fire a stick or paddle, and turns it 
over and over in the thick smoke. Again and again 
he does this, until the mat of gum weighs perhaps 
twenty-five pounds. This the Indian cuts open and 
hangs up to dry more thoroughly. Gum thus made 
is free from twigs and other rubbish, and has all pos- 
sible elasticity. Possibly because it is so prepared 
the gum of the Amazon is the most highly prized of 
all rubber. That from other sources might, perhaps, 
Tdc as good if as carefully and honestly treated. 

The wasteful methods described are commonly 
followed. They are destroying rapidly the natural 
sources of supply, while the demand is increasing rap- 
idly. These facts make a strong argument in favor of 
planting rubber trees to take the place of those in the 



The united states studies rubber \j 

forest. For it has long been manifest that reckless 
ways of treating the rulsber supply must soon destroy 
that source of wealth and comfort. 

As no satisfactory success has rewarded experi- 
ments of inventors and chemists who have long been 
searching for a substitute for rubber, great anxiety has 
been created by the destruction of the trees. This feel- 
ing caused the United vStates Department of vState to 
ask its consuls, in iSgo, for such information as they 
could get relating to the supply of rubber trees, to the 
treatment given to them, and other points of impor- 
tance bearing on the subject. The principal questions 
were : 

" Will there V)e a shortage in the supply of crude rubber?" 
" Is the rubber tree susceptible of cultivation ?" 
" Is rubber-growing profitable?" 

The replies to these queries indicate that the sup- 
ph^ of india rubl^er in accessible regions is diminishing, 
while the demand for it is increasing steadily.^ The 
consul-general at INIexico has written that "the Indians, 
in order to gain as much as possible of the juice at one 
time, often strip the bark from forest trees yielding the 
gitm, or make such frequent incisions that the trees 
soon die. In fact, they are constantly destroying those 
valuable trees which by rational treatment would yield 
right along." The United States consul at Costa Rica 
said that " It is certain that the methods used have 
been so improvident and destructive as to almost extin- 
guish the sources of stipply in those regions which for- 
merly produced the greatest quantity of this valuable 
article of commerce. ' ' Dr. Enrique Pittier, Director of 
the Institute of Physical Geography of Costa Rica, a. 



l8 DESTRUCTION OF RUBBER TREES 

painstaking student, says in the Boletin de Agricultura 
Tropical : " Our forests of liule, ineffectually protected 
b}^ laws well known to be dead letters, are miserably 
ruined to such an extent that on all the Pacific slope, 
from the volcano of Orosi to Punta Burica, a territory 
in which twenty years ago the beautiful Castilloas 
abounded, it is to-day difficult to find one. Soon we 
shall be able to say the same of the seemingly inex- 
haustible forests of the valley of the San Juan and of 
Talamanca and the other great valleys of the north." 
A like condition of affairs has long existed in Nicara- 
gua and Honduras. The people of those countries feel 
that the spontaneous products of nature belong to any 
one who will take them, and that laws designed to pro- 
tect the rubber trees are tyrannical. 

The India Rubber World says that there are just 
so many millions of caucho trees in South America, 
and that it is possible, by cutting down more of these 
each year, to increase the production of rubber of this 
kind. But the faster this is done the earlier will come 
the end. There will be such a decline in production 
as is show^n by the figures which are given in the next 
paragraph. And not in South America alone do such 
conditions exist. The rubber yield of Assam has fallen 
off; almost no Madagascar rubber now comes to mar- 
ket; there is marked decline in the production of Acra, 
Lagos and Benguela rubbers, and a like condition is 
predicted for the Congo Free State. In all the regions 
mentioned the sole mode of obtaining rubber is by de- 
stroying completely the trees which supply this gum. 

The same authority has published records which 
show that during the years 1855 to 1875, Colombia ex- 



COIvOMBIA'S SUPPLY DISAPPEARING I9 

ported 51,332,402 pounds of gum, the average annual 
increase having been 1,227,061 pounds through the 
twenty years, and the greatest increase having been 
during the last five years of that period, when the j-early 
average increase was 2,331 ,346 pounds. From that time 
the falling off was rapid, averaging 898,391 pounds for 
twent3--five years, during all of which quarter of a cen- 
tur}- only 43,292,343 pounds were exported by that re- 
public. 

Her average annual production of gum for the 45 
j-ears mentioned was 2,102,772 pounds, and the aver- 
age for the last five years was 1,256,825 pounds less 
than that. If the shrinkage in production should con- 
tinue at the rate of the last five 3-ears, Colombia will 
export no rubber in and after the year 1907. 

In the 3'ears 1894 to 1900, both included, the ex- 
ports of gum from Para and IManaos aggregated 349,- 
347,495 pounds. During that time the volume of ex- 
ports increased, each 3'ear, except in 1S97, when i ,269,- 
443 pounds less were shipped than were exported the 
previous year. The difference between exportations of 
1894 and 1900 amounted to 16,038,41 2 pounds. Of the 
whole amount 173,102,598 pounds came to the United 
States, and 176,244,897 pounds went to Europe. 

The Revue Coloniale, published b}' the Ministrj- of 
Colonies of France, is quoted as saving that a gang, 
attracted solely by hopes of immediate gain, destroj-ed 
all the Jlfaugaheira trees, j^oung as well as old, of a 
large district in Brazil. The consul-general of the 
United vStates, at Guatemala, wrote of the Castilloas 
of that republic: "Owing to the destructive manner 
which has been emploj-ed to obtain their valua1)le 



20 FOREST RUBBER TREES KILLED EVER\'\VHERE 

gum, they are rapidly disappearing. There have 
been various attempts made by the Guatemalan 
government to prevent the destruction of the.se trees, 
and to encourage the planting of more." And the then 
consul at Managua reported that " The natural supply 
of India rubber yearly decreases in Nicaragua. The 
cause of this is the habit of the natives, until lately, of 
cutting down the trees, thinking that they could thus 
secure more milk. The government attempts no su- 
pervision of the forests; any one may cut the trees, 
and great destruction is going on among them, through 
the young ones being tapped as well as the full-grown 
ones." 

A consul who wrote of the trade in Brazil, said: 
" If but three gashes per day are made in the bark of 
the rubber tree, and the hatchet in the hands of the 
careless native does not penetrate or strike the wood, 
the tree does not appear to suffer from the treatment, 
except that the trunk grows thick, and the scarred sur- 
face becomes irregular and bumpy. It will continue 
to grow, however, in good health, and yield milk in 
abiuidance for thirty or forty ^-ears. If the blow from 
the hatchet wounds the wood, the tree dies. It will 
thus be seen how very easily the destruction of almo.st 
* inexhaustible ' forests may be completed. For this 
reason very many of the once*' inexhaustible ' rubber 
swamps of the lower Amazon are already wholly or 
partially abandoned, and the same fierce on.slaughts 
are being made now upon the virgin swamps of the 
upper tributaries." 

Many quotations might be made, all tending to 
show that reckless destruction of rubber trees for gener- 



CASTILLOA ELASTICA THE CHIEF HOPE 21 

ations has been going on in nearly all rubber-producing 
countries. Several governments have tried to stop, 
and some have in a small measure checked, the de- 
struction. They have forbidden the slashing of the 
trunks; but, as uleros work in wilds remote from the 
ken of the authorities, and as local officials are some- 
times under the iniluence of uleros and traders, it 
scarcely is astonishing that little has been accom- 
plished. Certain governments have forbidden all ex- 
portation of rubber from forest trees, during long 
periods; but as adjoining states permitted the gather- 
ing of forest rubber during the same period, the result 
has been that uleros and traders smuggled across the 
boundary lines the gum they had gathered in prohibi- 
ted districts. Thus a country which has tried to pre- 
serve this most vakiable source of revenue for its peo- 
ple not only failed in that purpose, but it lost export 
duties it might have got from rulDber taken from its 
own trees. 

While Indians were recklessly cutting off, at the 
source, supplies wliich gave them their living, sev- 
eral causes comliined to increase the demand for the 
gum at the other end of the line of trade. 

Of all rubber-bearing trees, liule is best known by 
people of those parts of the New World that lie north 
of BraziL Much and thorough study has been given 
to its habits, requirements and capacity. In this the 
English seem to have led, and the Germans to have 
followed closely. From those studies the deductions 
reached appear to be that the Cast ill oa requires, above 
all else, good shade on moist, deep and well drained 
soil. These conditions are best found among tall for- 



22 WHAT PLANTERS HAVE DONE 

est trees, on hillsides, or at least on rolling ground. It 
seems to liave been established that trunks and branches 
of hule exposed to the rays of the sun suffer a change 
in their bark, and that this adversely affects the flow 
of milk. 

Theodore F. Koschny, of San Carlos, Costa Rica, 
says that the " Cast ill oa elof^tica is a shade tree, and 
any ciilture other than that which suits this character- 
istic will pro\-e a failure. It will grow in the open 
until about the sixth 3'ear, when the top begins to dry 
off, and shoots start from the lower stump to protect 
the trunk. It is the stem of the tree that needs pro- 
tection from the sun's rays. Trees not protected will 
perish from the first attempt to extract rubber. I have 
lost thovisands of trees at the first tapping for this rea- 
son." 

Koschnj' planted rubber .seeds in the forest after 
cutting out the larger trees where the shade was 
densest. Four 3'ears later the trees were twenty-five 
feet in height and five inches in diameter three feet 
above the ground. He says that while this rubber tree 
is so delicate in the open field, it is quite the reverse in 
the forest. 

Some have set hule trees among bananas, where 
they grew luxuriantly while well shaded; but after the 
tops of the hules passed those of the bananas, the 
growth was slow and the ultimate result unsatisfacto- 
ry. Plantations of rubber thus made have been aban- 
doned. Swampy lands and others lacking drainage 
seem unfit for the cultivation of hule. In such .situa- 
tions the trees may make rapid growth, their foliage 



EXPERIENCE WITH CASTILEOA 25 

be abundant and fresh, but the Hfe of the tree will be 
short and the milk poor in gum. 

Alberto Fait & Co., owners of an hacienda on the 
Pacific side of Costa Rica, saj^: " The experiments we 
have made in planting hule, and the results obtained 
thus far, are not in accord with those indicated in the 
Boletin de Agricultura. Permit us to describe the 
state of our plantation, without comment nor idea of 
contradicting persons acquainted with the suliject. 

" I. ^^'e have hule planted among coffee, and this 
is the best: in two years it has attained a height of two 
meters (seventy-nine inches), and a circumference of 
twenty-two cm., (8.6 inches^ 

"2. We have hule in the sun, but surrounded by 
the forest; and this also promises w^ell. 

"3. That which is in the forest and little acces- 
sible to sunshine has lost much. 

' ' From all which it appears that in this place, 600 
meters (1970 feet), a little more or less, above the level 
of the sea, on land formed of volcanic detritus and 
much vegetable mold, and where it rains with some 
frequency, air and sunshine are indispensable for hule, 
which needs shade in its first ^-ears only." 

The Boletin comments on the foregoing as follows: 
* ' We understand that the plants on the Lombardia 
hacienda are of little age: so we cannot admit the ad- 
vantage of growing hule and coffee together. Both 
are plants of surface roots, and require almost the same 
food elements. Coffee is a mere shrub, but hule be- 
comes a bulky tree. It will greatly damage coffee by 
exhausting the soil. Neither is its shade on the coffee 



■24 SEEDING OE CASTItLOA 

^vithout bad effect. With or without reason, hule has 
the credit of being very exhausting, and the authors 
who have treated of the subject are unanimous in con- 
demning hule in cafetals, and in plantations of cacao." 

Seeds of the hule mature from March to July, 
according to location. Their power of germination is 
short lived. They grow to a size rather larger than a 
-cherry pit, or to that of a large pea, and are covered 
with a mucilaginous substance. Birds and animals eat 
these seeds with gu.sto, a fact which tends strongly to 
keep down the number of wild hule trees. After gath- 
ering the seeds the}^ should be kept in water, not longer 
than four or five days, initil planted. Koschny likens 
the fruit of the hule to a pie three or four inches in 
diameter, on a green plate. " Its pulp is soft ai..'. red, 
having eight to fifteen seeds. When fresh one thou- 
sand seeds weigh a pound; by the end of the third day 
1,500 will be required to make a pound." 

From some of this evidence it appears that the 
■simplest and safest is also the cheapest w^ay to plant 
rubber. In that method the planter digs a small spot 
where the tree is to stand, and there puts a .seed two 
or three centimeters deep. Some argue that quicker 
results may be got by setting cuttings in places thus 
prepared. Such cuttings should be taken from the 
matured branches of the hule. Others assert that trees 
.so obtained do not grow as tall nor of as good shape 
as those from seed grow. When planted in the forest 
the trees should be four meters apart, giving 625 per 
hectare, and should be protected by stakes. 

Of many who have given evidence as to the rela- 
tive merits of various rubber trees for cultivation the 



YIEI^n OF CUM FROM CASTIIXOA 25 

greater iiuiulier have decided that CastiUoa is best. It 
seems to be suited to a greater range of temperature 
and altitude than most others, is propagated as easily 
as any, gives as much and as good gum as any other 
gives, with the possible exception of Hevea hraz'diensis 
or Para, and requires no more care in cultivation, har- 
vesting or treatment of its milk than is wanted by anj- 
other. For wet lands Para is imdoubtedly superior to 
CastiUoa, therefore it is thought that Hevea will thrive 
in the low lands of parts at least of Central America, 
and may give good results as far north as the region 
of Tehauntepec. 

Of hule trees John Crawford, of Nicaragua, says in 
the X". S. Consular Reports: " vSome trees of two or 
three feet in diameter and thirt^'-five to fifty feet tall, 
will give annually twenty to forty pounds of good rub- 
ber. In collecting rubber, if the trees have been prop- 
erly matured, from eight to twelve pounds can be taken 
biennial!}-; but after the tree is twelve years of age, a 
sufficient quantity of sap or emulsion could be annual- 
ly extracted from each tree to yield from ten to fifteen 
pounds of good, elastic rubber." 

The United States Consul in Costa Rica sa3-s: 
" The trees are easily planted, need no cultivation and 
grow rapidly from the seed. Hitherto most people 
have been discouraged from planting rubber trees, 
owing principally to the length of time needed for the 
tree to become sufficiently large to produce a profitable 
yield of gum; but the few who have undertaken the 
investment can now look forward to a time not far dis- 
tant when their few thousand rubber trees may bring 
them a fortv:ne little dreamed of." 



26 CASTILLOA BEST OK RUBBER TREES 

Another consul says of rubber planting in Nicar- 
agua; " The trees grow very rapidly, and plantations 
might easily be made which, in the course of ten or 
twelve 3'ears, would become highly remunerative. It 
is an incontrovertible fact, as far at least as Nicaragua 
is concerned, that the rubber tree is susceptible of cul- 
tivation. This assertion is based upon the success that 
has accompanied the few experiments that have already 
been made. In this district are large tracts of land 
suitable for growing rubber trees. It is the opinion of 
those here wiio are interested in rubber production, 
that it would be very profitable." 

John Hinckler Hart, F.L.S. , Superintendent of the 
Botanical Department of Trinidad, who is an authori- 
ty, says: " The experience personally gathered during 
twenty-three years of service in the West Indies; what 
has been gathered from writers on the subject who have 
detailed their observations from the viewpoint of both 
travelers and cultivators; and from actual travels and 
observations personally made in Nicaragua and other 
parts of Central America, lead to the conclusion that 
for the pre.sent the most valuable rubber for planting 
in Trinidad is the Gastilloa elastica. This is the kind 
from which a crop can be most quickly obtained, and 
it is the fastest grower. Castilloa trees are not found 
growing in swamps or inundated lands, but on the flat, 
moist banks of rivers. Of all the different species of 
rubber-producing trees, the Castilloa should prove, un- 
der cultivation, the most remunerative. I am of the 
opinion that, properly and economically conducted, the 
growing of rubber offers a safe and suitable invest- 
ment." 



GROWTH AND YIELD OP CASTILLOA 2/ 

Superintendent Hart has continuously and persist- 
ently advocated the cultivation in Trinidad of the Cas- 
tilloa, and at the time of writing, in 1898, had orders 
for 300,000 seeds. He declared that the climate of 
Trinidad is probably better suited than is that of any 
other West India island for the successful growth of 
Castilloa, and that it was his belief that it is equal to 
the climate of Central America. 

In Ceylon Castilloa trees six years old had a cir- 
cumference of twent3'-six inches three feet from the 
ground, and grew three and a half inches in girth dur- 
ing the j^ear. Two years later the same trees were 
fort}^-three feet in height and thirty-two and a half 
inches around at three feet from the ground. 

Robert Cross, the well-known collector, in his re- 
port on gathered seeds of the various rubbers furnished 
to the Indian government, saj's: " My own opinion is 
that, planted in suitable places and properly wrought, 
Castilloa will be found to give a larger return per acre 
than any other plant or tree cultivated in India." 

Mr. Cross further reported to the Madras govern- 
ment " that a tree of Castilloa. one and one-half to two 
feet in diameter should give twelve pounds of rubber 
per annum. ' ' Many other sound authorities have giv^en 
their testimony as to the high value of Castilloa elas- 
tica, which produces nearly every pound of rubber 
from Costa Rica and of all the tropical countries north 
of that republic. 

Senor Romero, lately ambassador from Mexico, in 
his very full and elaborate work, " Coffee and Rubber 
Culture in Mexico," says of the Castilloa: " The large 
profits of rubber culture are obvious. A plantation 



28 RUBBER BETTER THAN GOLD 

will give, at the end of a few 3'ear.s, six pounds of sap 
a 3'ear for every tree; that sap would lose about one- 
half b}' evaporation. Then each tree would 3'ield three 
pounds net of rubber; the minimum rate of produc- 
tion, which will increase every succeeding year to the 
extent of being three or four times greater than the 
first." 

In recent years, the better informed, more intelli- 
gent and enterprising dwellers in tropic countries have 
observed with concern the destruction of wild rubber 
trees, aiul have asked, with deep interest, whether or 
not the cultivation of rubber-producing trees will pay. 
Their interest in this question has been shared by 
manufacturers, dealers and others. This has caused 
careful study of the subject by capable inquirers. Per- 
haps such studies led to the expression credited to the 
late Collis P. Huntington, who made millions by 
building and managing railroads. He is said to have 
remarked: " If I had my life to live over again I 
would not wear it awa}' in the hard struggle that falls 
to the lot of the railroad promoter. I would go into 
the tropics of Mexico and grow rubber. It is better 
than gold, and it will make more millionaires than oil 
has made." 

Yet he was eminently successful in his field, which 
recjuired of him wide and accurate knowledge, keen in- 
sight and prudent judgment; therefore the words above 
quoted are deserving of consideration. Others have 
given evidence of like tenor; as Senor don Matias 
Roiiiero, formerly minister at Washington for Mexico, 
who is perhaps the most quoted of all writers on Mex- 
ican agriculture. He says: "A well-managed ruliber 



QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED 29 

plantation, after six years, should be able to distribute 
among its shareholders from one hundred to one thou- 
sand per cent, annually on their investment." 

Before accepting as a guide opinions which encour- 
age hope of such relativel}- great profits, prudent peo- 
ple will stud}' well the evidence of man}' witnesses, 
that they may know what are the grounds on which 
such opinions are based; for rul)l)er cultivation is a 
new industry, almost wholly unknown to millions of 
intelligent and well-read people of America. Before 
questions of detail as to management of plantations 
should come the questions: What are the cost of culti- 
vation, the yield of gum and the probable value of the 
product ? What is the existing, and what will be the 
future, demand for that product ? 

Other questions of importance, relating to condi- 
tions other than those of soil and climate, will natural- 
ly occur to the prudent investor; but, so far as may be 
learned from the rapidly-growing mass of evidence, 
there is little if any risk in growing rubber in cleared 
plantations, and none whatever if planted among forest 
trees, — a plan which closely follows nature. 

All trustworthy evidence obtainable seems to war- 
rant the opinion that a safe guide, for those who think 
of engaging in tropical agriculture, may be found in 
the figures gathered into the next page. They present 
the means of the statistics and the estimates offered by 
thirt\--five authorities, to show the probable quantities 
of gum from a yearly yield of Castilloa elastica trees of 
various ages and conditions. The values are those of 
like quantities of gum at the mean New York price for 
the decade ending with the year 1900 : 



30 



EVIDENCE OF MANV WITNESSES 



Countries 



AUTHORITIES 



Bolivia 

Brazil 

Brazil 

Calcutta 

Calcutta 

Ceylon 

Colombia . . . 
Colombia . . . 
Costa Rica. . 
Guatemala . 
Guatemala . 
Guatemala . 
Jamaica . . . . 
Jamaica . . . . 
Jamaica . . . , 
Mexico .... 
Mexico .... 

Mexico . 

Mexico .... 
Mexico .... 
Mexico .... 
Mexico .... 
Mexico .... 
Mexico .... 
Mexico .... 
Mexico . . . . 
Mexico .... 
Mexico . . . . 
Mexico . . . . 
Mexico . . . . 
Nicaragua . 
Nicaragua. 
Nicaragua . 
Trinidad . . 
General . . . 



Conway, Sir Martin 

Kennedy, K. K., U. S. Consul 

Temple, Briti.sh Vice-Consul 

Handbook of Commercial Products 

Merritt, S., V. S. Consul 

Botanic Gardens Report 

Croft, C. I.. Consul 

Sims, W. E., U. S. Consul 

Koschny, Theodore F 

Chama Co 

Horta, Jose 

Record, Philadelphia 

Derry, R., British Colonial Forestry Board. 

Kew BviUetin 

Jackson, J. R., Kew (Kicl.'^ia af/icana) 

Artiz, Dona Felipa 

Aztec Co 

Bedford, W. J., manager El .Salto 

British Foreign Office 

Bryden, superintendent 

Coate, A. B 

Bering, Sir Henry, British ^linister 

Ellsworth M. R 

Fernandez, Don Rejolia 

Gano, Charles C, C. E 

Guenther, Richard, Consul-General 

Mayangos, Don Eateo 

Romero, Senor don Matias 

St. Croix, M 

Yorba, Senor 

Armstrong, W. S 

Crawford, John 

Morris, Dr. Daniel 

Hart, vSuperintendent Botanical Garden... 
Bureau American Republics 



Ounces Values 



80 
248 

44 
26 

12S 
80 

320 



48 
16 
So 

43 
z6 
176 

48 

21 

5b 
48 
64 



112 

170 
267 
56 

93 
So 
32 
32 
169 
24 
h4 
64 



$3.00 
930 

1.65 

■975 
4.80 
3.00 
12.00 

1-95 
.bo 

I. So 
.bo 

3.00 

1.64 

■975 
6.60' 
I .So 

.7S8 
2.10 
I. So 
2.40 

.40 



4.20 

b-35 
10.01 
2.10 

3-488 

3-99 
1.20 
1.20 

^■34 
.90 

2-475 
2.40 



From the above thirty-five reports it appears that 
the average of the mean yield reported was 81.6 ounces 
of crude rubber gum, or 5 pounds 1.6 ounces. The 
value was calculated at 60 cents a pound net, and aver- 
aged $3.06 per tree. 

In a series of tests made, evidently' with much in- 
telligent care, by A. B. Coate, manager of a planta- 
tion on the Isthmus of Tehauntepec, Mexico, it was 



CAREFUL TESTS OE RUBBER TREES 



31 



found that the milk oozed so slowly from the bark of 
young trees, and in such small quantity, that it would 
not leave the cuts. In some cases the milk was allowed 
to dry into strip in the channels; in other instances it 
was brushed from the cuts and solidified by modes other 
than slowh' drying in the air. 

The first lot of eight trees thus tested by Mr. 
Coate and mentioned in the following table, stood 5 x 
8 feet apart; the second lot of eight were 8 x 10 feet 
apart. The design is to bleed out enough of these to 
relieve their fellows, when they shall have become 
crowded. It appears from the reports that 29 tappings 
of trees from 5.7 to 7.75 inches in diameter and 30 to 
78 months old, averaging 44 months, gave an average 
of 2.5 ounces per tree, which may be valued at 9.4 
cents net. 



CONDITIONS 


No. Trees 


Diam. Inches 


Onnces of Gnm 


Cultivated; 42 months old; all strip 

Retapping above; interval one month 

Cultivated; 30 months old from seed 

Retapping last above; interval one month. 

Half -wild male 

Wild; estimated age 78 months; slight flow 


8 
8 
8 

3 
I 

I 


5 -70 
5-70 
b.25 
6.25 


8. 00 
2.70 
19.00 
2.70 
8.00 
3.00 




29 











Tw^elve tappings of uncultivated and larger trees 
showed results as follows : 



CONDITIONS 


No. Trees 


Diam. Inches 


Ounces of Gum 


Injured by fire two years before tapping. . . 

Of this gum S oz. was strip 

Of this gum 7.3 oz. was strip ; bark 's in 

No strip; liark "« in. thick 

Retapping last above; interval 3 months.. . 
I month.. . . 

First tapping; no strip 

Bark «.,' in. thick; no strip 




14 
12 
II 

iS 
iS 
18 

14 
20 

U) 

12 











1(1.2 
24.0 
22.0 
46.0 
15.0 
14.0 
23.0 

55 -o 

40.0 

4.0 


Male 








13 


I 1 -T f. 









32 BEST RESUI^TS COMF, FROM SIMPm MEANS 

At 60 cents a pound the average yield above shown 
would be worth 81 cents. Five of the trees were not 
far from the same size, but their yield ranged from 15 
to 55 ounces. 

Reliable data as to some of these points are not 
easil}- obtained, because few years have passed since 
careful study of the subject began, and because few 
have had conclusive experience in this industry. It is 
not denied that much knowledge has been gained of 
the habits of growth, the needs and the 3'ield of vari- 
ous rubber-giving trees, nor can it be doubted that 
correct deductions from such knowledge will gi\-e in 
time a trustworthy guide to the planter. There may 
be little risk in planting rubber in the way which re- 
quires the least outlay of time, labor and mone}-; and 
there are practical planters who hold that this way 
gives the best results yet obtained from ruljber cul- 
ture. 

B-aring on the question of yield of rubber trees 
we have the testimou}' of a number of witnesses. Many 
of these were United States consuls who were instruct- 
ed by the Department of State to inquire into the sub- 
ject. It is fair to assume that each, as it is certain that 
some of them, give in their replies evidence obtained 
from many who had thorough and practical knowledge 
of the crude rubber industry. A summary of the evi- 
dence of these consuls, and of other seemingly trust- 
worthy witnesses, is given in the foregoing table. It 
has seemed proper to estimate the value at a conserv^a- 
tive figure. 

Charles C. Gano, C. E., spent nearly ten j-ears in 
Mexico, during which he studied the subject of culti- 



YIELD OF GUJI FROM CASTILI.OAS 33 

vating rubber. He says that a seven-year-old Gastilloa 
should 3'ield at least 1.5 pounds of pure rubber. This 
yield should increase 8 ounces each of next 1 7 years of 
its growth, and after the tree attains the age of 25 
years it should give 15 to2o pounds of fine gum annu- 
ally during the rest of its life. 

Such 5-ield from an acre of trees 15 feet apart each 
way, or 222 trees per acre, would amount to 3,330 
pounds. If it should be estimated that the gum will 
sell for a price equal to the mean of the quotations for 
316,807,000 pounds imported in the last nine years, 
viz., 84 cents, and that 14 cents will be required to pay 
expenses of gathering and marketing, the planter 
should have an income of $2,331 per acre. 

Mr. Daniel Morris is a botanist of wide reputation 
who has studied the rubber- j-ielding species, not only 
experimentally in botanical gardens, but also in their 
native forests in Central America. There he became 
con\'inced that Gastilloa trees, planted in suitiable local- 
ities, will yield an average of one pound sterling, or 
about five dollars, each at the end of eight or ten years. 

Superintendent Hart, of the Botanical Gardens of 
Trinidad, says there are in that garden Gastilloa trees 
which will give from four to six pounds weight per 
annum. An acre of 200 trees will give a gross return 
of some ninety pounds sterling, saj^ $450 per annum, 
while the expense for maintenance is much less than 
for any other known crop. 

In the State of Amazonas, Mr. Temple, British 
Vice-Consul, found, by examining the books of a num- 
ber of actuall}- worked rubber estates, that the average 
vield of Para gum per tree, per season, may safely be 



34 COST OF PRODUCTION OF RUBBER 

estimated at 2.2 to 3.3 pounds, under favorable condi- 
tions, although on some estates the average is not more 
than I.I pounds. 

Sir Martin Conway says that in Bolivia he found 
nobody counting on less than three pounds of rubber 
per tree annually, and no estimates higher than seven 
pounds. 

In the Ceylon Botanic Gardens one Para rubber 
tree was tapped, with results as follows: 

At II years age 27.75 ounces 

At 13 years age 42.00 ounces 

At 15 years age 45.00 ounces 

At 17 years age 51.00 ounces 

At 19 years age 48. 25, ounces 

Evidence has been given showing that 5,000 cul- 
tivated Castilloas gave, in 1S99 and 1900, 12,000 pounds 
of gum. This is equal to two pounds six and one-fifth 
ounces per tree. 

Cost of production is of course an important ele- 
ment in any business, but .seems to be comparatively 
light in the case of rubber cultivation. Even when 
land is cleared of forest growths, and rubber trees are 
planted in the open fields, the expen.se seems to be not 
heavy. M. H. I^ewis, Vera Cruz, Mexico, says that 
sixty dollars an acre will clear and plant with two hun- 
dred such trees. The cost of replanting where trees 
die, and of cultivating, will be forty dollars per acre the 
first year, and twenty dollars annually thereafter until 
the seventh year, making a total of two hundred dol- 
lars per acre, or one dollar per tree by the time they 
are read}^ to tap. 

The same gentleman says that the cost of planting 
among forest trees, including cost of plants for 150 



RUBBER PLANTING IN COSTA RICA 35 

trees per acre, is thirty-six dollars per acre. Weeding 
and replacing plants which die will average twelve dol- 
lars annually during the next seven years. The trees 
will then have cost eighty cents each, or one hundred 
and twenty dollars per acre, and will be ready to tap. 

Theodore F. Koschny, of San Carlos, Costa Rica,, 
where GafitiUoos elastica in great numbers thrive, has 
found by many experiments that the cost of planting 
115 to 117 trees per acre, and caring for them until 
seven years old, would be small in comparison with the 
large and lasting retvirns which would be secured from 
the gum, plus the value of the plantation. He would 
take sixteen ounces of gum per tree in their eighth 
year. 

Witnesses who have given evidence as to the yield 
of rubber trees, are quoted as having written as fol- 
lows : 

"A large tree, five feet in diameter, will yield, 
when first cut, about twenty gallons of milk, each gal- 
lon of which will make about two and a half pounds 
of rubber." — Thomas Belt, F. G. S. 

" Trees planted on lands having the soil, climate 
and elevation adapted to the culture will produce from 
five to six pounds of juice on the first year that they 
are tapped, which amount is equivalent to 2.4 pounds 
of pure rubber. One hundred thousand rubber trees, 
the first year's harvest, will 3'ield :^i 20,000. " — British 
Foreign Office Report. 

"x\l)out 44 per cent, of rubber remains from the 
original amount of milk after the water and other mat- 
ters have been eliminated by evaporation. Trees plant- 
ed ou lands having the soil, climate and elevation 



■36 RETURNS TEMPTING AND GOOD 

adapted to their culture, will produce from five to six 
pouuds of juice in the first year that they are tapped 
which amount is equivalent to two and two-fifths 
pounds of pure rubber. This product will be gradu- 
ally mcreased every year for the next four or five 
years, and will sell for fifty cents per pound on the 
plantation. By the sixth or seventh year rubber trees 
will be in bearing, and the seventh and thereafter 
should yield from three to five pounds per tree Given 
SIX hundred pounds as the yield of an acre of 193 trees 
and fifty cents per pound as the profit realized over 
■expenses, we have a profit of three hundred dollars 
.gold per acre."— Bulletin of American Republics. 

" Trees from one to three and a half feet in diam- 
eter yield annually from two and a half to twenty gal- 
lons of emulsion, from each gallon of which about two 
pounds of rubber should be collected."— J. Crawford 
botanist. ' 

" On an average about forty pounds of rubber is 
obtained from each tree of average size."— C. I. Croft 
Consul, Cartagena, Colombia. 

" Planting is easy and inexpensive and the returns 
very tempting and good. Trees should yield from 
^i .50 to $2.00 each per annum. There are two meth- 
ods of planting— from the seed and from the shoot. 
The former takes from six months to a year longer 
than the latter. Statements vary widely as to the 
period of maturity. Some claim that the tree will 
yield when four or five years old, and some that it will 
reqmre a much longer period."— U. S. Consul-General 
De Ivcon, at Ecuador. 

" Trees planted in land having the desired climate 



ACTUAI, RESUI.TS REPORTED 37^ 

and elevation for the culture will produce from five to 
six pounds of juice on the first year that they are 
tapped (at the expiration of the fifth year from plant- 
mg), which amount is equivalent to 2.4 pounds of rub- 
ber. This product will be gradually increased each year 
for the next four or five years. Don Juan Aleman, Aca- 
yucan, has a grove of several hundred rubber trees of 
all ages, nine years and down, and irregularly planted, 
with coffee between, in healthy condition. Last year 
forty rubber trees were bled, producing 125 pounds of 
rubber (3^ pounds to the tree), or over $480 per acre. 
Seven hundred and fifty trees will produce 4,500 
pounds, worth at the plantation twenty to twenty-two 
dollars per hundred pounds. Deducting the cost of 
curing, he will have a net profit of $1,225, besides the 
profit from corn, bananas and vanilla raised as side 
crops. The net profit on the investment of 100,000 
rubber trees, after deducting the entire cost of land and 
all expenses up to the first year of har\-esting, will be 
$95,000, and each of the succeeding harvests for twen- 
ty-five or thirty years will bring a steady income of 
over $100,000. "—Consul-General vSir Henry Neville 
Daring to the British Government. 

" There is one case authenticated in vSoconcusco, 
where three young forest rubber trees were trans- 
planted which have now j-ieldcd for more than thirty- 
five years. The diameter of trunks of said trees is about 
seven feet, and the diameter of branches at their great- 
est expanse is more than eighty feet. Each of ''these 
trees yields annually more than fifty pounds of gum. " — 
Richard Guenther, U. S. Consul. 

"On the River Aquiry, or Acre, one of the tribu- 



38 EIGHT HUNDRED DOI.I,ARS AN ACRE 

taries of the River Purus, two hundred trees yield as 
much as three tons of rubber per annum." — Consul 
Kennedy, Para, Brazil. 

M. lycCroix, on his plantation on the Tulija River 
in Chiapas, is said to have .secured an average of five 
pounds of rubber from trees six years old. 

Mr. M. H. Lewis, a rubber planter on the Isthmus, 
says in a letter to the " India Rubber World," July i, 
1899, that at an estimate conservative in the extreme, 
a plantation of rubber trees will ^-ield the first year's 
tapping eighty dollars per acre, four hundred dollars 
per acre four 3'ears later and eight hundred dollars per 
acre when the trees are in full bearing. 

' ' The quantit}' collected at one cutting .seldom ex- 
ceeds eight to ten pounds." — vSamuel Merritt, Consul- 
General, Calcutta, India. 

On vSeptember 2, 1891, Mr. Mateo Mijangos wrote 
to the " Official Journal " a letter about rubber culti- 
vation, in which he says, among other things : "A rub- 
ber tree gives, in its first year of bearing, two pounds 
of product; three pounds in the second year, four in 
the third, and five in the fourth; together fourteen 
pounds, which, sold at fift}' cents, gives seven dollars, 
or $1.75 per tree each 3'ear . 

"A rubber plantation in full bearing, sa}' the eighth 
year, should yield anywhere from $250 to $350 gold 
profit per acre. Matured rubber plantations are not 
for sale." — Philadelphia Museum. W. P. Wilson. Di- 
rector. 

' ' The greatest number of agriculturists seem to 
agree that a tree, after attaining its proper proportions, 
should i^roduce a quantity of rubber weighing not less 



THREE HUNDRED PER CENT PROFIT 39 

than six pounds annually. It must be obsen^ed, how- 
ever, that as the ^ield of each tree will increase annu- 
ally, there is ever}' reason to believe that a tree twenty 
years old will give fifteen to twentri-five pounds of sop 
eochyeor.'" — Sr. Don Matias Romero. 

" Trees growing in the forest to a height of about 
forty feet and a diameter of three feet, yield from twen- 
t3'-five to one hundred pounds of raw rubber per anntun, 
according to the size of the tree." — W.E.vSims, Consul, 
Colon, Colombia. 

Senor Sabatana has a rubber plantation of ninety 
acres located in Guatemala, across the line from the 
Department of Palenque, in the State of Chiapas, the 
trees now being thirty years old. This gentleman 
claims that his plantation paj's him over $1,300 per 
acre each ^-ear. 

In " ^Mexico and United States," published in 
1898, Romero sa^-s : 

' ' Enough has been written lateh' on rubber culti- 
vation to show that the profits in Mexico, at least, 
would be very great; indeed, three hundred per cent, 
on the capital invested is a possible return, after five 
years, from cultivating CastiUoa elastica in that Repub- 
lic. This is a return which provides plenty of margin 
for contingencies. Rubber growing is no longer in the 
experimental stage, as witness the plantation of La 
Esmeralda, in Oaxaca. According to the same report 
the total expense for five years' cultivation of a rubber 
plantation of 100,000 trees will not exceed $25,000 in 
silver, and the ^deld of 100,000 trees at the first year's 
harvest will bring the planter $120,000, besides the 
product obtained from the corn, vanilla beans, cacao 



40 SAFEST AND MOST LUCRATIVE INDUSTRY 

and bananas raised from side planting. The net profit 
on the investment, after deducting the entire cost of 
the land and all expenses up to the first year of har- 
vesting, will be $95,000." 

Our consul at Para said: "There is no question 
whatever as to either the practicability or the immense 
lucrativeness of rubber growing in this valley. Here 
it is solely a matter of time. The seeds are abundant 
and easily obtained. They germinate easil}' and grow 
rapidly. The ^'oung rubber trees can be found in the 
forests and transplanted; but it is much less labor to 
plant the seeds in a garden bed until they are ready to 
transplant. The great advantage of a compactly plant- 
ed rubber grove would be the saving of labor in trav- 
eling through the swamp. The rest of the work is light 
and quickly done, except, perhaps, the coagulation of 
the milk. Then why don't they plant rubber trees? 
That is the question Brazilians are beginning to ask 
each other. Every one confesses that it would be a 
most magnificent investment of capital. The few ex- 
periments that have been made abundantly prove that 
they are right." 

Senor don Matias Romero, author of the most com- 
plete work in existence on Mexican agriculture, says : 
"Anyone in a situation to enable him to make a rubber 
plantation of greater or less extent, may undertake it 
at once, with the full conviction that it is the safest 
and most lucrative industry; neither cacao, tea, coffee, 
sugar nor any other tropical product would give the 
same profits as rubber; and the returns from each of 
these industries are in reality equal to those obtained 
from a rich gold mine." 



THE DAY OF SCOFFING IS PAST 4I 

Eugene Ackerman is said to have carefully studied 
the rubber interests while at Para, and is credited with 
the statement that the difficulty of getting laborers in 
the valle}' of the Amazon will prevent production keep- 
ing up with the increase in consumption. 

The India Rubber World, published in New York, 
is an authority on subjects relating to the rubber busi- 
ness. It says: ' ' The day of scoffing at the idea of culti- 
vating rubber is past. That there will be disappoint- 
ments and faihires in fraudulent and badly managed 
plantation schemes no one doubts; but that the culti- 
vated rubber tree ten years hence will be a productive 
and exceedingly profitable part of many large planta- 
tions is an undisputed fact." 

It said in February, 1901: "As to the future of 
rubber prices, certain considerations are worthy of at- 
tention. In the first place, the great increase in the 
demand for raw material in recent years has been due 
both to new uses of rul)ber and to the introduction of 
the use of rubber goods into new fields. In not a few 
cases the recent rate of growth is doubtless meeting a 
check for the present, whereas the production of rub- 
ber seems likely to continue, in which event it would 
seem that prices should decline. On the other hand, 
a very marked decline in prices would lead to still fur- 
ther new uses of rubber, which would prevent the cost 
from sinking to former levels, or at least from staying 
there very long." That periodical quotes prices of 
rubber in New York and Liverpool for the years 1892 
to 1900, both included, from which the mean prices 
and rises and declines were found to be as follows, in 
cents : 



42 RISE IN PRICE AI^MOST CONSTANT 

Years New York Difference I^iverpool Difference 

1892 65.85 67.S5 

1893.. 67.00 — 1. 15 73.90 + 6.05 

1894 68.75 + 1-75 71-85 — 2.05 

1895 75-75 + 7-00 77.20 + 5.35 

1896 78. 00 + 2.25 81.80 + 4.60 

1897 84.25 + 6.25 87.05 + 5.25 

1898 95.00 + 10.75 97.70 + 10.65 

1899 100.50 + 5.50 102.05 + 4.35 

1900 97-25 ~ 3-25 "'2.25 + -20 



It i.s evident that the rise in prices has been almost 
constant since the year 1S93, and amounted to 30.25 
cents per pound, or 45.1 percent. During those years 
the importation of crude rubber into the United States 
was 316,807,680 pounds, of the vahie of ^268,946,081, 
or 84 cents per pound. In 1893 and 1900 there was a 
decHne in New York, and in 1S94 in Liverpooh 

In the 3'ear ending Tune, 1899, the forests of the 
tropics sent out some 100,000,000 pounds of rubber. 
It has been shown that of that vast quantity Para alone 
furnished about 36,500,000 pounds, Manaos 12,175,000 
pounds. Africa ranks next as a producer, but its gum 
is inferior to that of Brazil; then come in the order of 
their importance as producers of gum, Ecuador, Nic- 
aragua, Colombia, Mexico, and lastly, A^enezuela. Mil- 
lions of dollars invested in steamships and railroads 
are employed in carrying to the markets of the civil- 
ized world the product of these tropic trees, and in 
taking back tho.se of factory and of farm to pay for 
the labor of Indians in the wilderness, and of a host of 
white men who also serve this great branch of indus- 
try, which has the safet}', the convenience and the 



NOT COMPETITIVE BUSINESS 43 

comfort of humanity for its purpose. The construc- 
tion of the Congo railway was large!}-, if not wholly, 
due to the demands of this great industry. 

Money flows from trade centers of Europe and the 
United States to the rubber traders. Under the .stim- 
ulus of this traffic cities have been built; perhaps the 
greatest of these being Para, at the mouth of the Am- 
azon. It has a population of 100,000, and is the rub- 
ber market of the world. But 2,000 miles up the 
Amazon is a lusty 3'oung rival, Manaos, with 40,000 
inhabitants, to which go vessels direct from ports in 
distant parts of the world. Para ships daih' carry some 
100,000 pounds of rubber, and Manaos sends out about 
one-third as much. There are upon the western coast 
of Africa two cities of size which almost wholly live 
upon the rubber trade. 

Rubber growing is not a competiti\-e business in 
the sense in which the term is used customarily; its 
experimental stage may not be past, and the actual, 
practical iield of operations is in effect quite new. The 
task is to supph" a hundred million pounds of rubber 
demanded each year. To do this, the product of fifty 
million trees giving two pounds of gum each would be 
needed. Manifestly the field is not cramped nor crowd- 
ed. One who has income enough to supjiort him while 
waiting for the rubber trees to reach a paying age ma}- 
invest in planting rubber, assured against early and 
sharp competition: for comparatively few will have the 
courage to plant and the patience to wait eight years 
for an income which, when it does come, should pay 
amply for all expenditures and waiting. 

Only a few years have passed since the first rub- 



44 AI.!, SOURCES OF SUPPLY INSUFFICIENT 

ber tire was made. To-da}- a million — -or is it perhaps 
several millions — of tires are rolling o\'er highway's 
and byways in all lands where man may go with more 
or less safety. Automobiles not only quickly wear out 
great quantities of rubber, on streets and on roads 
already well paved and smooth, but they will be the 
most powerful factor ever known in leading to the 
making of more good roads, until improved highways 
will be the rule instead of the rare exception in all the 
land. And such improvements will bring into service 
yet more rubber-tired vehicles, which will in their turn 
work for yet more extensive improvements in roads, and 
so en, at an accelerating rate. 

Rubber may be worked over into new forms, and 
thus be made to .serve a second and perhaps a third 
time, after having been useful in shapes and for pur- 
poses for which great elasticity is required; but that 
which is worn from a tire is whol!}' lost. Destruction 
of the sources of supply on the one hand and more rapid 
and complete, destructiou of the manufactured product 
on the other must result in such scarcity that an advance 
in prices will follow, unless some effective means shall 
be adopted for changing such conditions. Planting 
rubber trees may change all this, but years will proba- 
bly pass before enough gum will be obtained from 
plantations to materially reduce the price of rubber. 
Already the demand for rubber is so great that prices 
have advanced largely. Changes plainly foreseen are 
likely to make a demand which all known sources of 
supply cannot meet. Even if planting of rubber should 
go on for a generation at a rate many times as great 
as is now known, there would be no more rubber than 



MODERN NKEDS WILL SUSTAIN PRICES 45 

will be required at prices which will give large profits. 

Some of the rise in value is doubtless due to the 
general prosperit}- which advanced the value of other 
raw materials; but it seems safe to conclude that the 
requirements of modern life will scarcel}- permit prices 
to fall much, even should a financial and industrial 
panic come. Economies practicable on a cultivated 
plantation are enough to give profit, because the trees 
are on a limited area and therefore within easy reach; 
there are no losses through advances to laborers who 
may run away with the rubber; no " dead losses" due 
to illness or death among laborers; there is saving of 
time and money and improvement in the quality of the 
gum through the use of scientific methods in treating 
the milk; and the owner of the plantation himself may 
market his crop, without pa3'ing profits to many mid- 
dle-men, as producers of wild rubber now have to pay. 

Those who cultivate rubber have advantages which 
those who till the land of the North do not enjoy. 
Chief among these is that uniformity of seasons which 
insures regularity of harv^ests throughout the decades, 
thus preventing over-supply and depression of prices. 
No drought or flood cuts off the crops, nor does frost 
in a night destroy the products of years of working 
and of hoping. 

Planters who have suitable lands raise bananas, 
colocasia and cassa\-a with which to feed their laborers, 
and to sell for the nione}' to pay expenses while wait- 
ing for the first crop from their rubber trees. The 
waiting may seem long and tedious, but each day 
brings something to help carry the permanent invest- 
ment toward the han-est; and the planter has the as- 



46 RUBBER COMPARED WITH NORTHERN CROPS 

surauce that each day adds to the vakie of his rubber 
trees, and to the probabiHty that he will in a few years 
enter on the enjoyment of a sure income for life. No 
insurance, no pension, no annuity so great as his rub- 
ber grove will probably give could be bought for ten 
times its cost. 

Analy.sis of carefully gathered and trustworthy 
data shows that the principal eight crops harvested in 
the United States during the thirty-seven years that 
ended with 1902, had a general average farm value 
equal to only $18.98 per acre. Their yield, their values 
and the amounts by which the ascertained a alue of 
banana, and the calculated val tie of rubber crops (.r(r6'(? 
the value of those eight American crops, is shown by 
the subjoined table: 







Yield 
Per Acre 


Value 


Difiereuce in favor of 




Per Acre 


Rubber 


Bananas 


Barley, Inishels. . . 


22.9 
15-3 
24. « 
27.4 
82.5 
13.6 
12.5 
1 -25 
797 • 3 


1^13 49 f.-'Cy-^ X7 


|io6 44 

I 10 46 
1 09 86 

111 13 
76 04 

112 12 
109 47 
.109 07 

64 12 


Buckwheat, " 
Corn, " 
Oats, " . 
Potatoes, " 
Rye, " . 
Wheat, " . 
Hay, tons 




9 -;7 

lu 07 
8 80 

48 89 
7 81 

10 65 
10 86 
55 81 


3'-'3 39 
302 79 
304 06 
268 97 

3-^5 05 
302 21 
302 00 
257 05 


Tobacco, pounds. - 










General averages 






118 98 


i^293 88 


$^00 97 



These figures show that the farmer of the United 
States, in return for all the intelligence and the dili- 
gence and energy he puts into his work, for the use of 
his money and for his exhausting toil, receives from his 
farm far less than the safest and simplest of all crops 



DIVIDEND PAYING VALUE OF RUBBER TREES 47 

of tropical America gives for little more than the mere 
harvesting. 

If a tract were planted with rubber trees twenty- 
feet apart, and if their annual yield of gum should be 
worth $3.06 per tree, the net profit would be ^312.86 
more annually than the farm value of those eight crops 
of the North. In other words, a rubber plantation 
should give each year a profit equal to the average 
farm value of those crops for thirty-seven years and 
nine and a half months. 

In the year 1902 a consul of the United States was 
widely quoted as having written alarming statements 
about the rubber-planting industry. Articles which 
were wddeh' published in the United States and Europe, 
insinuated, if they did not distinctly avow, that " rub- 
ber-planting is worse than a lottery," and that those 
who induced people to join in planting rubber were 
' ' digging a hole into which good American dollars 
may be dropped out of sight forever. ' ' Yet the very 
articles which contained such charges said that on a 
plantation near Tuxtepec, in the State of Oaxaca, 
Mexico, 350 rubber trees seven to nine years old gave 
800 pounds of gum, for which $312 U. S. gold was re- 
ceived. If correctly reported, the average yield per 
tree was 2.29 pounds, and the average income per tree 
was 89 cents. If those trees stood twent}^ feet apart, 
the income was ^96.27 per acre. 

If the cost of clearing, planting and caring for that 
plantation through the seven to nine 3'ears — say eight 
years — averaged $300 per acre, that first crop paid 3.8 
per cent, per annum on that cost. If those figures are 
correct, those who own that plantation have in it a 



48 RUBBER GROWING SHOULD BE CO-OPERATIVE 

property which now pa^'s an amount equal to five per 
cent, per annum on $1,925.40 per acre. One might be 
safe in saying land and cultivation which, in a merely 
experimental stage, pays five per cent, a year on nearly 
two thousand dollars per acre, ma}- be a safe invest- 
ment at $300 per acre. 

Nevertheless, he who would hurry into the planting 
of rubber would do well to remember that, rich as the 
promises of the industry now^ are, much remains to be 
learned about the effects which the varyir.g conditions 
of climate, of soil, of exposure and other matters have 
on the various kinds of rubber-bearing plants. With- 
out knowledge of such suljjects one may find loss 
where fair gains are promised, even though trustwor- 
thy authorities agree that the cultivation of rubber 
will long be most profitable. 

The facts reported seem to show clearh- and strong- 
ly that rubber growing especially invites co-operation 
by the many who can invest small sums, and who can 
scarcel}^ afford, even if they were willing, separately 
to give their own time and labor to a crop which re- 
quires so little attention, during the six or eight years 
that may elapse, between the planting and the first 
harv^est. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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